They start out by coating the cells with some charged polymers that are known to serve as a good substrate for silication, and then expose the yeast to silicic acid solution. They end up with hard-shell yeast, sort of halfway to being a bizarre sort of diatom.

The encapsulated cells behave rather differently. After thirty days in the cold with no nutrients, the silica-coated yeast is at least three times more viable than wild-type cells (as determined by fluorescent staining). On the other hand, when exposed to a warm nutrient broth, the silica-coated yeast does not divide, as opposed to wild-type yeast, which of course takes off like a rocket under such conditions. They're still alive, but just sitting around - which makes you wonder what signals, exactly, are interrupting mitosis.

This provides a new means to an biological/inorganic interface, a way to stich cell biology and chemical nanotechnology together. If you can layer yeast cells with silica and they survive (and are, in fact, fairly robust), you can imagine gaining more control over the process and extending it to other substances. A layer that could at least partially conduct electricity would be very interesting, as would layers with various-sized pores built into them. The surfaces could be further functionalized with all sorts of other molecules as well for more elaborate experiments.

Yeast wears a silica coat: Various living cells were individually coated with silica using layer-by-layer self-assembly and biomimetic silicification. The viability of yeast cells was found to be enhanced threefold after silica encapsulation, and their cell division could be suppressed by encapsulation.